The traditional approach to reimbursing physicians for in-hospital medical care has been on a highly disaggregated fee-for-service basis, with separate payment increments for each hospital visit, medical examination or other similar medical service provided. Per-Case Reimbursement for Medical Care is an experimental pilot program designed to test an alternative approach which reimburses physicians for in-hospital medical care on the basis of flat-rate per-case payments, with the exact amount of payment depending upon the patient's discharge diagnosis. The primary research objectives of this program are to test the effect which per-case payments to physicians may have upon the length of stay for in-hospital medical care, and to determine any changes in medical costs that may be attributable to the per-case method of physician reimbursement. It may be hypothesized that reduction should be observable in both average length of stay and total cost per case.